


in the silence between songs

by crownsandbirds



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Character Study, Daddy Issues, Fluff, M/M, Music, and also shinji has an oral fixation but we all knew that, they love each other very much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 17:09:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20067583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/pseuds/crownsandbirds
Summary: 'Being with Kaworu feels like the only real thing in the world sometimes.'





	in the silence between songs

Being with Kaworu feels like the only real thing in the world sometimes.

In between blood and death and Angels and the fluorescent lights glinting off his father’s glasses and hiding his eyes - his father, his father, _his father_, the undeniable, tyrannical presence of him, his every word sending a surge of pain piercing through the soft, tender skin on the back of Shinji’s skull and slashing all the way down his spine, tearing through vertebrae and splitting his bone marrow in half. The hospital beds and the silence and the huge hallways and Rei’s empty eyes and the looming existence of the Eva. The feeling of the LCL splashing around his body and closing on top of his head, like a perverted imitation of his mother’s womb, blood and _blood_ and _his father_. The way his father looks at him as if he’s an ill-programmed, ill-constructed software, with neutral displeasure and the corners of his technology-cold eyes tracing all the ways in which Shinji has failed and continues to fail, always, every expression of emotion a sharp contrast with the perfect barely-human pilot his father wanted.

Every day feels the same, and every hour feels hazy. The minutes trail by in a disturbing, distorted fog, and every night the ceiling witnesses Shinji curled up around himself, listening to the same two songs over and over and over _and over_ again, waiting until something starts making sense, until the world allows him - _something_.

In the silence between songs, Kaworu is here and Kaworu loves him.

“Shinji-kun,” Kaworu says, sings out, drawls sweetly, like Shinji’s name tastes gentle on top of his tongue. Kaworu says his name like wine connoisseurs drink wine - smell it, twirl it inside a glass, smell it again and lift it to see it against the light, and put it in his mouth, on top of his tongue, press it against the roof of his mouth and swallow it. Kaworu says his name like the french kiss Shinji never had.

Shinji wants to kiss him. Desperately, his blood rushing inside his arteries, wants to be held and open his mouth and allow Kaworu to kiss him. Wants to see how his name tastes on Kaworu’s lips and teeth. Wants to be ravished, broken in pieces, _kissed, held, loved -_

Shinji swallows, presses the tip of his fingers against the corner of his walkman. He feels painfully conscious of his own body, his heart pushing against his sternum, his hair falling on top of his forehead. “What is it?”

“Can I listen too?”

It takes Shinji a moment to shift his gaze from the graceful curve of Kaworu’s lips to the display of the walkman. _25_.

Oh.

Shinji wants to answer, wishes words would come out of his throat with the same elegant ease phrases flow out of Kaworu’s (and he’s thought of Kaworu’s neck, the sinuous length of his throat, how his heartbeat would feel if Shinji pressed his thumb against his pulse point), but he doesn’t. He takes off one of his earphones and hands it over. Kaworu smiles - beautifully, gently, Shinji can’t comprehend such a gorgeous existence sometimes, his mind unused to easy beauty and soft words - and takes it and puts it in his ear.

Shinji watches.

He can pinpoint the exact moment in which Kaworu decides he enjoys what he’s listening to; Shinji himself has listened to this over and over, knows this song and its silences and notes like the back of his eyelids, so it all trails back to a backdoor of his mind as his eyes watch Kaworu with all the intensity of a lonely voyeur.

He can _see _it. The moment Kaworu’s pretty frown of concentration melts into careful enjoyment and then into full-blown appreciation, when the corners of his lips curve upwards and his expression softens.

Suddenly, Kaworu’s gaze slides from the opposite wall and rests on Shinji’s face, and he’s still smiling, and Shinji’s entire being aches with how badly he wants to kiss him.

“I really like it,” Kaworu says.

Shinji can feel his face heating up. Kaworu’s smile widens. “I'm glad you do.”

Their littlest fingers link together.

_He loves me, he loves me, he loves me -_

_I love him so much._

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in an hour while ignoring genetics class don't be too harsh on me.


End file.
